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Create USPS-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Use the CData Cloud Hub to connect to USPS from Klipfolio and build custom visualizations using live USPS data.

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with the CData Cloud Hub, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to USPS data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for USPS in Cloud Hub and build visualizations from USPS data in Klipfolio.

The CData Cloud Hub provides a pure MySQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for USPS, allowing you to build reports from live USPS data in Klipfolio — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you create visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, the CData Cloud Hub pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to USPS, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested USPS data quickly.

PostageProvider: The postage provider to use to process requests. Available options are ENDICIA and STAMPS. If unspecified, this property will default to ENDICIA.

UseSandbox: This controls whether live or test requests are sent to the production or sandbox servers. If set to true, the Password, AccountNumber, and StampsUserId properties are ignored.

StampsUserId: This value is used for logging into authentication to the Stamps servers. This value is not applicable for Endicia and is optional if UseSandbox is true.

Password: This value is used for logging into Endicia and Stamps servers. If the postage provider is Endicia, this will be the pass phrase associated with your postage account. It is optional if UseSandbox is true.

AccountNumber: The shipper's account number. It is optional if UseSandbox is true.

PrintLabelLocation: This property is required to use the GenerateLabels or GenerateReturnLabels stored procedures. This should be set to the folder location where generated labels should be stored.

The Cache Database

Many of the useful task available from USPS require a lot of data. To ensure this data is easy to input and recall later, utilize a cache database to make requests. Set the cache connection properties in order to use the cache:

CacheLocation: The path to the cache location, for which a connection will be configured with the default cache provider. For example, C:\users\username\documents\uspscache

As an alternative to CacheLocation, set the combination of CacheConnection and CacheProvider to configure a cache connection using a provider separate from the default.

Click Test Database.

Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to USPS data from Klipfolio.

Connect to USPS in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to the CData Cloud Hub from Klipfolio to create a new USPS data source.

Open Klipfolio

Click in Data Sources to add a new data source

Search for and select MySQL as the Service

Click "Create a custom MySQL data source"

Configure the data source by setting the MySQL connection properties:

Host: your instance (e.g., myinstance.cdatacloud.net)

Port: 3306

Database: your database (e.g., USPS1)

Driver: MySQL

Username: your CloudHub username

Password: your CloudHub password

SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Senders)

Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"

Select the checkbox to "Use SSL/TLS"

Click "Get data" to preview the USPS data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click the checkbox to "Model your data" and click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with

Name your model

(optional) Set the Description

Set "Header in row" to 1

Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2

Click "Save and Exit"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

Click "Create a Klip"

Drag in a component

For the Series, select the column whose count or aggregation you wish to visualize

For the X Axis, select the column you wish to group by

In the Properties tab for the X Axis, click the checkbox to "Group repeating labels"

Click "Save"

Set the Name & Description and click Save

SQL Access to USPS Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live USPS data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating USPS data.

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